Yogi Berra is alleged to have said, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” News of another cruise ship in limbo over the coronavirus feels that way.
On February 5th, we posted about the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship that was being held for coronavirus testing and quarantine at Yokohama, Japan, confining roughly 3,700 passengers and crew. Now, almost exactly one month later, the cruise ship, Grand Princess, is being held off San Francisco pending testing of passengers and crew, who have shown the symptoms of the coronavirus. Passengers who were on the previous voyage and remained aboard will also be tested.
A 71-year-old Northern California man who had been a passenger on the previous voyage became the first to die from the coronavirus. Another passenger from the previous voyage, which was between San Francisco and Mexico, has also been hostilized with the virus. A statement by Princess Cruises said that 62 guests on the Mexico voyage had stayed aboard for the passage to Hawaii and that they are currently quarantined in their cabins. The ship’s current cruise between San Francisco and Hawaii was cut short and the ship sent back to California.
Princess Cruises said that the tests would be flown out by the U.S. Coast Guard and administered on Thursday morning, local time. The ship’s onboard medical team will administer the tests, which will be flown back out to a lab in Richmond, California. The group of fewer than 100 identified for testing includes passengers who sailed the previous voyage and remain on board as well as passengers and crew who have coronavirus symptoms.
The ship will not be allowed to dock until the test results are available. Exactly what will happen should positive results be returned is unclear. The Grand Princess has a capacity of 2,590 passengers and 1,100 crew.
Passengers are criticizing the cruise line and health officials for creating confusion and engaging in missteps. In particular, passengers interviewed by the Los Angeles Times said the company, Princess Cruises, was lax on health screening protocols prior to boarding and withheld information about the risks they faced, even as the ship’s condition became international news.
Last month’s quarantine of the Diamond Princess did not go well. In less than two weeks the number of documented cases of the virus rose from 10 to 700. Six passengers infected with the coronavirus ultimately died.
Quite frankly looking at this with the experience of over three decades as an Officer in passenger ships the operating companies are behaving extremely irresponsibly. Taking just the crew of one of my ships we had 35 nationalities drawn from Far East, Middle East and European countries. The first thing that should have been done was cancel the cruises and test all the crew members. Perhaps most people are unaware that dozens even hundreds of crew members are changed each voyage due to various reasons such as leave rotations, transfers, illness and disciplinary causes. Therefore any illness is transmitted around the world within 24 hours as these persons arrive and depart by air.
For one cruise line to sail again with a full load of crew and passengers after the positive tests and a death amongst passengers from the previous cruise is criminal behavior. This is the same cruise line that had a ship quarantined in Japan and now has a ship quarantined off the coast of California, USA. Thus we have once again a petri dish for the virus.
One might ask why the ships Master sailed when a ship is supposed to be commanded by its Master. Well those days are in practical fact long gone as economics control all concerned and cruise lines in particular are vicious in punishing any Master or Officer who goes against them. Its good to be retired, no longer under any obligation to these operators and free to speak out.
Good Watch